Sunday, 8 December 2013

Sorting Mail

I got home 6.30 and by around eight I had written a bad but full first draught of a poem. The writing of it felt like satisfying the craving to sniff plant fertilizer when one has a predisposition to terrible drug-addiction. Like the satisfaction of resolving to let a pencil-sketch alone. Like satisfying urination; defecation; ejaculation. Completing it, I felt as if I was listening to the music with the best groove, tasting the food of the divine, walking in the Scottish countryside - but all, just for one fleeting, piqued moment, before I came crashing back down to earth. Back down to debt, back down to life or death responsibilities, back down to absolute failure as a writer.

That fleeting second of orgasmic self-confidence made it all worthwhile, forever - made all the better by the knowledge that it never would come again in such a powerful ecstatic surge. That it was gone forever and it left a smile imprinted on my heart, alongside my family.

The Night Shift Epiphany.I am on the night shift,

With a pleasant fellow called Dudley,Who can't really hear me.

Dudley can't hear me, But he is so much more than that -

Told to tap him on the shoulder, If the fire alarm goes off,He doesn't need me to.

I'm not sure,

How to communicate,

As I don't sign

And he does,

Little lip-reading,

So I tap him,

Smile and mouth;

"YOU OK?"

Theatrically,

Of course.

He smiles,A light in his,

Then rolls, His, Eyes,

And nods.

I'm not sure,

If he's rolling his eyes at me,

Or as a gesture, Of shared contempt,

Perhaps for the task, In which we are currently, Engaged.

I resolve,To write a letter,

Explaining what, A Freak, He stands next to,At 4 am, In the factory morning,In the parallel queue,

Explaining about me,The one tapping him, On the elbow, And grinning,While sorting mail,At 4 am,Telling him,I am a writer.